


exit wounds

by serpentheir



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jughead Jones's Caffeine Addiction, M/M, Missing Persons, Private Investigators, Trans Archie Andrews, Trans Jughead Jones, detective work but in a "fuck 12" sort of way, schrodinger's archie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27187856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentheir/pseuds/serpentheir
Summary: It’s been years since Jughead Jones heard from Archie Andrews. After surviving an attempted murder, only to be spectacularly betrayed by both of his best friends, Jughead didn’t leave much behind when he moved away for college.Three years later, Jughead still gets less sleep and more caffeine than he probably should, but aside from that, he’s a different person. Riverdale is solidly in his rear-view mirror.Until, in the fall of his junior year, he gets a call from Mary Andrews. Archie is dead.Well, he’s still officially declared “missing”, but he’s been gone for three weeks, and there were plenty of people with a hit out on him. Mary wants Jughead’s help investigating what happened to Archie, hoping for some kind of closure so she can finally grieve in peace. Jughead’s first instinct is to kindly turn down the offer: the news has already sent him into a downward spiral, and the last thing he needs is to spend more time thinking about Archie – until, on his birthday, an unmarked letter arrives in the mail.
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones, Archie Andrews & Mary Andrews, Archie Andrews/Jughead Jones, Jughead Jones & Mary Andrews
Comments: 19
Kudos: 43





	1. The Letter

**Author's Note:**

> what am i getting myself into

> "All night I stretched my arms across  
> him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing  
> with all my skin and bone _Please keep him safe._  
>  _Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be_  
>  _like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed_  
>  _to pieces."_
> 
> \- "Saying Your Names" (Richard Siken)
> 
> "Maybe home is where I have to go tonight. Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark."
> 
> \- _It_ (Stephen King)

Jughead slams his laptop shut and crumples on top of it, arms splayed out over his desk. As if cued by the sound of his exasperation, there’s a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Jughead groans, face still firmly planted in his arms. The door latch clicks.

“Hey, dude.” By the sounds of it, it’s Jabari, and he’s about to ask Jughead to do something he doesn’t want to do.

“Hey,” Jughead answers.

“So…” Jabari starts. Jughead sits up and swivels around in his chair to face him. He raises his eyebrows as Jabari searches for what he’s trying to say. “So, I know I was supposed to run the meeting tonight. But the thing is, this girl I've been getting together with is home alone, and she asked me to come over at five-thirty, so…can you run it? It’s super easy, literally all you have to do is come up with a prompt and then tell everyone to write for half an hour and then ask who wants to share. That’s it.”

Jughead wipes a hand over his face. It’s not like he has anything better to do. He was going to go to the meeting anyways, so it’s not like he had plans, but if he’s learned anything from spending the past year in the fiction writers’ club, it’s that getting a bunch of college students – even the ones who love writing – to sit down and write is kind of like herding cats. Cats who won’t shut the fuck up about H. P. Lovecraft.

Jughead sighs. “Okay, fine.”

“Phew.” Jabari bends over in mock exhaustion, bracing his hands on his knees. “Thanks, man, I owe you one.”

"Don't mention it," Jughead replies, and swivels back around to his desk as Jabari walks back into his own bedroom.

Jughead opens his laptop again, then stops for a moment, transfixed by a leaf falling from the tree outside his window, floating down to join the countless piles of dead, browning leaves all over campus. He blinks and turns his attention back to his computer, less intimidated by the blank screen now that he actually has something to do.

He loads up the website where they usually get the club’s weekly prompts and scrolls through the list labeled _Creative Nonfiction_. The week's prompt reads:

_September 24 th: Fall is traditionally recognized as a time of endings: leaves fall, animals hibernate, and the earth settles into its cold, quiet slumber. This week, consider both beginnings and endings. Dig through the files on your computer, the pages in your notebook, or wherever you store your ideas. Is there a story you always meant to finish? Pick it up again, and remember what made you so passionate about it in the first place._

Sure, why not.

He copies and pastes the prompt into a new doc, minimizes the window, and clicks on the folder labeled “Writing.” He’s had the same computer for going on five years, and the files are neatly organized by year, dating all the way back to his sophomore year of high school. There are plenty of unfinished pieces he could work on, but.

But.

There’s a reason he never finished those stories, and he’s not sure he wants to think about it again. He’d decided long ago that it _wasn’t_ his job to tell Riverdale’s story. Sure, everything that happened in town would’ve made for a hell of a novel – and god knows things probably haven’t changed, have probably only gotten _more_ chaotic in his absence – but some things don’t need to be memorialized.

Some things, he thinks, should be given the freedom to die quietly and slip from everyone’s memories. Including his own.

Instead, he opens the folder labeled _College - Freshman Year_ and pulls up a random article that he’d never managed to finish. The writing isn’t horrible, but it’s a little hard to follow, and kind of pretentious. Thank god for the tutoring center. It really is true what they say: that teaching someone something is the best way to learn it; the improvements he’s made in his writing, even just over the past year, can attest to that. He messes around with the sentence order, swapping out especially obnoxious words here and there, until he glances at the clock and realizes he’ll have to sprint if he wants to get dinner before the club meeting.

* * *

The beginning of the meeting goes pretty smoothly, to his surprise. Probably because it’s still practically the start of the semester; the new members aren’t comfortable enough with each other to start goofing off yet. While he’s reading off the week’s prompt, his phone goes off, and he glances at the screen before shutting off the ringer and shoving it back in his pocket. It’s a Chicago number, probably a spam call.

“Sorry about that, guys. Anyways, yeah. Pick an old story you never got around to finishing, and see if you can immerse yourself in it again. Sometimes the passage of time – having a new perspective – is all you need to figure out how it should end.”

Everyone starts rifling through their backpacks, pulling out everything from ratty spiral-bound notebooks to expensive thin laptops. As he’s opening up the article from earlier, Jughead’s phone buzzes in his pocket. A quick glance at the screen alerts him that he has a voicemail. Weird.

Amid the sound of papers shuffling, he steps quietly out of the room into the hallway to check his voicemail. He presses play and holds the phone up to his ear.

_“Hey, Jughead.”_

Jughead feels faint, suddenly, and leans back against the wall to steady himself.

The voice on the other end is quiet – so quiet that even with the volume all the way up, he has to mash the phone against his ear to hear what she’s saying – but it’s unmistakable.

 _“Sorry to call you out of the blue like this, I know you’re probably wondering what’s going on – assuming this_ is _still your number after all this time,”_ Mary says.

She pauses, and the silence stretches out long enough that Jughead starts getting uncomfortable. Maybe _scared_ is a better word for it.

_“I don’t know how to tell you this, I – I can barely believe it myself, but. It’s…it’s about Archie.”_

Jughead notes, numbly, that he’s sliding down the wall, slowly sinking into a seated position on the floor.

 _“Jug, he’s gone.”_ Her voice breaks on the last syllable.

Jughead feels himself hit the ground.

His muscles seem to stop working; his arm drops to his side, paralyzed, sending his phone clattering across the floor, but the tinny sound of Mary choking back tears still echoes through his phone’s speaker. He’s shaking, all over, less like shivering in the cold and more like he’s being electrocuted.

He manages to regain enough control over his limbs to shove himself up off the ground, grabbing his phone and stuffing it back into his pocket without even pausing the message, and runs back into the meeting room to grab his bag.

“Sorry, I gotta go. Something came up.” The other members’ heads turn towards him as he rushes out the door again, but if anyone says anything in response, his ears are ringing too loudly to hear it.

The campus is dark and empty, thanks to the cold. Jughead barely notices the wind biting into him as he walks, his body slowly going numb from the inside out. He manages to somehow space out for the rest of the five-minute walk. He blinks and suddenly he’s outside the door to his room.

He fumbles with the keys until he manages to unlock the door, stumbling inside and dropping his bag on the floor of his bedroom. Without bothering to turn a light on, he collapses into his bed, staring off into the distance. The part of him that’s still capable of rational thought is grateful that Jabari is out tonight. His brain feels like radio static, threatening to drown everything out, and he thinks trying to hold a conversation would send him over the edge into a complete breakdown.

He manages to hold it together for a few seconds, and then he breaks down anyway. He curls up into a ball on top of his covers, grief ripping through his chest and tearing dry sobs from his lungs.

“Fuck,” he rasps, and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes like that’ll stop the tears from coming. It doesn’t.

He finally resigns himself to it and stops resisting, lets the tears and the ugly, choking sobs come. Hot tears slip down his cheeks and land on his pillowcase, and he just keeps staring at the wall.

It’s only then that he realizes he hasn’t even listened to the rest of Mary’s voicemail. He’d just barely noticed, upon getting back to his room and dropping all his stuff on the floor, that it was still playing, that Mary had been talking for at least another five minutes.

He doesn’t think he can bear to hear it, but nothing could make him feel any worse than he already does, so he sits up and grabs his phone, pulling up his voicemail app and pressing play before setting the phone on the mattress next to him.

It plays from the beginning and Jughead feels sick, hearing her say _hello_ and knowing what comes next: _He’s gone._ There’s a numbing, burning sensation deep in the pit of his stomach. When Mary gets to the part he hasn’t heard yet, he tries to hold his breath, stifling his sniffles so he can hear her.

 _“I’m sorry. I wish you didn’t have to find out this way.”_ Mary takes a deep breath, steadying herself. _“I’m calling you because – well, I know you and Betty used to like solving mysteries – you two did a better job than the sheriff, as far as I’m concerned.”_

Hearing Betty’s name sets off a fresh wave of agony tearing through him, an old wound he’d thought healed a long time ago.

 _“Archie’s been gone for three weeks. He hasn’t called, hasn’t sent a letter, nothing. His social media accounts have been dead, too. There’s no sign of him, and you know him, Jug, you know he wouldn’t just_ leave. _He’s – I know – we_ all _know he’s dead. But they haven’t found a body yet. They – the Rockland County police – haven’t found_ anything _. Not even a shoe, or a shred of fabric. His car’s still here – everything still is. He didn’t just_ leave _. But none of us know what happened.”_ Her voice cracks again. Jughead has to pause the message again to take in her words.

Archie is _gone_ – gone, not dead. A rash of goosebumps breaks out over his arms and the back of his neck, making him shiver.

He presses play.

_“That’s all I want, Jug. Closure, I guess. I’ve been staying here, in Riverdale, since he disappeared, and I can’t stand it anymore. Well – I’m sure you understand the feeling. Riverdale isn’t a place people usually come back to. There’s nothing here for me anymore. Fred’s gone – you know that. Even Vegas is gone; according to the police, he ran off right around when Archie disappeared. Guess he knew Archie wasn’t coming back, too.”_

Mary pauses for a second, and Jughead feels the gears in his head spinning frantically, digging up bits and pieces of memories about Riverdale he’d forgotten years ago.

_“Believe me, I wouldn’t be calling you, asking you to come back after – what, three years? – if I had any other choice, but the truth is, I don’t have anyone else to call. I know it’s probably the last thing you want to do, come back here, but…it would mean the world to me if you did. I thought you might be able to help – you were always better at turning up things, finding the truth, writing it all up. All of that stuff. Give me a call, I guess, if you can. I know this is hard on you, too – believe me, I wouldn’t be bothering you if I thought anyone else could help. I just want answers…to know what happened to my son.”_

Click _._

In a daze, Jughead walks into his dorm’s kitchen and starts up the coffeepot. His thoughts are moving almost too fast to process. Once he’s made himself a cup – the first of many that night, he expects – he sits down, opens up his laptop, and starts researching.

* * *

The first result is from the _Riverdale Register._ So Alice is still in town, then. The article is dated September 6th, and based on the sparse details, it must be from right after Archie went missing. Knowing Alice, she probably hassled the officers on the case for as much information as they could provide, but it looks like they didn’t give her much to go on. The article lists only the most basic facts: Archie Andrews, age twenty-one, recognizable by a snake tattoo on his upper right arm and a scar from a stab wound on the right side of his stomach, was last seen on the 4th, by Pop Tate. Archie left the diner at 11 P.M., reportedly in a hurry and seeming agitated. Anyone with any information about his whereabouts is asked to contact his mother, Mary Moore.

He tells himself that he won’t check Archie’s Facebook or Instagram, knows it’ll hurt too much, but he does it anyways. There’s not much to see; Jughead unfriended him on Facebook a while back in a fit of petty vengeance, and now he regrets it.

The only posts on Archie’s Facebook wall from after the 4th are “thoughts and prayers,” “miss you bro,” “come back to us,” and other assorted messages from people Jughead doesn’t even know. There aren’t nearly as many as he would’ve expected, especially given the three-odd weeks that have elapsed since Archie disappeared, and it makes Jughead wonder what exactly he’s been up to these past few years.

He scrolls down a little further and feels like he’s been punched in the ribs, the way all the air in his lungs is suddenly ripped out of him.

It’s Archie’s face, under a big red banner that says MISSING PERSON, and he _knows_ that photo: it’s from their senior prom night. He’d been the one to take the photo. He used to carry a copy of it in his wallet.

Archie’s wearing a tux and a red bow tie; he and Veronica had color-coordinated their outfits. His hair is sticking up everywhere, undoubtedly having been gelled down and subsequently destroyed by his nervous habit of running his hand through it. He’s smiling at the camera like he knows something it doesn’t, but because it’s Archie, it’s endearing rather than suspicious.

The contrast between Jughead’s memories of that night – cheesy but undeniably fun, all four of them laughing and falling all over each other – next to the stark black text reading out Archie’s height and weight and “date last seen” makes him feel sick.

That night – prom night – had been the last time the four of them hung out together. He can picture the aftermath of that photo too easily: how he’d put his phone back in his pocket and Archie was still smiling and looking at him, making Jughead feel like something inside his chest was too big for his body, burning him up from the inside out. Like always. And then he’d broken eye contact, turning that blinding light away from Jughead and towards Veronica instead.

Once it had gotten late enough, they’d all split off into pairs, and that night, in her bedroom, Betty had said: _There’s something I need to tell you. It’s about me and Archie. Jug, we—_

Maybe the choice of photos is fitting, after all. The Archie _he_ knows has been gone for much, much longer than three weeks.

* * *

Fully aware that it’ll only make him feel worse, Jughead starts scrolling through older posts. Archie was never very active on social media, but the bits Jughead can piece together make Archie’s post-high-school life seem much less eventful than Jughead had expected. There are a couple birthday messages, photos of family and friends that Archie has been tagged in, but that’s really it. _What has he been doing for the past three years?_

Jughead has the feeling he’s going to find out.

He doesn’t realize what time it is until his eyes are starting to burn, and he glances down at the clock in the bottom right corner of his laptop. 3:08 A.M. He runs a shaky hand through his hair and decides to give up the ghost – as it were – for tonight, and try to get a few hours of uneasy sleep.

* * *

He wakes up absurdly early, nonetheless. The sun is barely lighting up the still-grey sky, and the birds haven’t started chirping yet. He could go back to sleep, except now that he’s awake, the memories of the previous night start rushing in, making his entire body feel like it’s full of bees: the kind of nervous energy brought on by too little sleep and too much everything else.

The dining hall isn’t open yet, and he doesn’t have any work to do for the weekend, so without much preamble, he logs onto his computer and starts trawling through Archie’s social media again. He ends up scrolling through Betty and Veronica’s profiles, and even tries hunting around to see if he can find Kevin or Reggie or Munroe or anyone else from high school. The more profiles he finds without any mention of Archie, the more desperate he gets.

Five hours later, his eyes are burning again, and he still hasn’t found anything. Somehow, though, despite all the evidence – or, more accurately, the lack of any – Jughead is certain that Archie’s still alive. He has to be.

Whether the conviction is actually based in truth or just desperate hope, he’s not sure, but being best friends with Archie for ten or so years means that both of them developed a sort of intuition for how the other was feeling, even after three years without talking. Jughead thinks psychics are pretty much bullshit, at least for practical purposes, but he doesn’t know how else to explain the quiet conviction, deep within him, that Archie is out there somewhere. Still alive. Waiting for someone to find him.

* * *

Jughead spends the rest of the day aimlessly browsing the social media profiles of other people from Riverdale, and even scrolls through the backlog of articles on the _Register’s_ website, looking for evidence of Archie. There’s virtually nothing. He wonders if everyone else in their grade had the same idea as him, to get the fuck out of Riverdale and sever ties with the whole town.

From what Jughead can tell, Archie never left. Jughead had never expected he would. Archie was one of the incredibly few people for whom Riverdale felt like home. Jughead had always planned to get out, one way or another, but maybe if things hadn’t gotten so fucked up in senior year, he would’ve come back to visit. Would’ve _wanted_ to come back.

 _Well,_ he figures, _looks like I couldn’t stay away forever._ Not that he really _wants_ to come back now, not exactly, but it’s his only choice if he wants to find Archie – dead or alive. He has to be alive.

* * *

Ultimately, Jughead gives up on the social media stalking, admitting to himself that it’s not exactly the most professional method of private investigation. As much as the idea scares him, if he wants to actually help in any way whatsoever, he needs to call Mary back.

He spends the next few hours psyching himself up for it (which involves a lot of pacing around the room and drinking a lot of coffee) and calls her that evening.

“Hello?” Mary’s voice sounds tinny through the phone, and it only makes everything feel stranger, more unfamiliar.

Jughead clears his throat. “Um. Hi, Mary.” He’s an adult now, he figures, so he should call her Mary, even though it doesn’t feel right. “It’s Jughead.”

“ _Oh,_ oh my goodness, hi. One second, I was in the middle of something—” Jughead can hear papers shuffling for a few seconds before Mary picks up the phone again. “Sorry about that. Thank you for calling me back, I wasn’t sure if you would – and I would understand why if not, of course, but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate hearing from you. How are you?” she asks, and Jughead feels very weird talking about _his_ feelings to the mother of a missing kid.

“Uh, you know…I’m okay,” he replies. It doesn’t feel right to say _good_ – and it’s not true, anyways – but he doesn’t want to put any more of a burden on her than what she’s already dealing with. “How are you?” It comes out stilted, awkward, and he winces once the words are out of his mouth. If it was weird for him to try to answer that question, what the hell is she supposed to say? _“Good, except that my only remaining family member is missing and presumed dead”?_

“I’m…I’m taking things day by day, I guess. I’ve been staying busy with this whole investigation thing, trying to keep my head above water, but…it’s hard.”

“Yeah,” Jughead replies quietly. Feeling like he should say something else, but at a loss for words, he adds: “I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry.”

Mary takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Thank you. I know this must be…a lot for you, too. Especially after all this time. I know a voicemail isn’t exactly the best way to find out about this kind of thing.”

“If there _is_ such thing as a best way,” Jughead adds dryly. “But, really, it’s okay. Thank you for calling me. If there’s anything I can do to help…” He trails off, hoping Mary will tell him what exactly she wants him to help with, because he has no fucking clue how to begin.

“Yes, absolutely.” She sounds more determined now, but still tired. “I haven’t exactly come up with any kind of plan – I wasn’t sure if I even had the right number, much less if I’d hear back from you. I tried to find your current number; I mean, I didn't just want to leave a voicemail like that on some random person’s phone. But no one in town had a more recent number for you – well, I'm sure you know. And I didn't find anything under your birth name – I take it you got yours changed?"

"Yeah," Jughead says, caught off-guard. "Gender marker, too." He wasn’t expecting to have the 'surprise-I-have-a-new-name-and-gender' conversation with Mary, but he realizes he's never actually had to have it with anyone before.

“That’s great. Archie did his, too. It was a few months after his – and your – senior year ended, I think. Did both of his at the same time. The DMV was a nightmare,” she adds, and her laughter catches Jughead off-guard; it’s so far from how he thought this call would go.

He makes a vague affirmative sort of noise, not exactly sure how to respond to that information. Hearing Archie’s name still feels like there’s a screw being drilled through his guts, even after all this time.

There's a second of silence before Mary asks: "So, what should I call you, then? I'm sorry if I used the wrong name in my voicemail – I’ve gotten so used to knowing you as Jughead, I didn’t even process that you might’ve changed that, too.”

"No, it's okay. Jughead is fine. That’s always felt more like my 'real' name, anyways."

“So, are you Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Third, now?" Mary asks.

Jughead sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Yeah, no. I thought about it, but it never really felt like _me_. Plus, my dad...I didn't want his name. I don't think he even knows I changed it. He'd probably be mad I'm not carrying on the family legacy or whatever, but, I mean, what legacy is that, really? Alcoholism? Twenty-five-to-life sentences? No thanks."

Mary doesn't say anything, and Jughead realizes he shared a little more than he meant to. "Sorry, didn't mean to make that so depressing. But I believe in xenogenesis, so. I guess my name’s a reminder of that. That I don’t have to be like him.”

“I get it,” Mary says softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay,” Jughead replies. “It’s actually kind of nice. I mean, I haven’t really talked to anyone about that aspect of it. I’m not really in touch with anyone from Riverdale, so no one knows enough to ask. Kinda got a blank slate when I moved away. New state, new name, everything.”

“Where – where are you now? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Uh, Massachusetts. Not too far away. I’m on a scholarship, that’s the only reason I can afford out-of-state tuition.” He laughs half-heartedly.

“Oh, that’s great. I used to work in Boston, I loved it there.” She clears her throat. “Look, I know this has to be…way too much to process all at once, so it’s okay if you need to take some time to think about it, but – the reason I called. Maybe getting a new perspective would help us find _something_ , anything, about what happened to Archie. I’m really grasping at straws here, and I wouldn’t be asking you to come back to Riverdale if it wasn’t my last resort. I can’t imagine you’re eager to come back. But if you could – maybe come home just for a few days, just to take a look around the house and a few other places, read through the case files, that kind of thing. I can’t tell you how much it would mean to me just to get some kind of closure.”

Jughead exhales slowly. _Home_ , he mouths. The word feels strange in his mouth, even stranger when he thinks about it referring to Riverdale.

“I’ll – I’ll think about it,” he replies. “I promise. I do want to help, even after…everything. Archie deserves it. You do, too. Can I call you back in a few days, once I’ve thought it over?”

“Sure, that’s okay. Thank you, again, Jughead. I really do appreciate it.”

“Thank you, too,” he replies, even though he’s not exactly sure what he’s thanking her for. It just feels right. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Mary says, and he hangs up the phone.

* * *

The rest of the week passes in a daze. Thankfully, he’s busy enough with work for his classes and picking up tutoring hours that he barely has enough time to think about Archie. Reminders of him and random memories still slip into his thoughts from time to time, and every time, they sting, but he manages to keep his shit together for a few days. Jughead doesn’t have class on Fridays, and the upcoming Friday is his birthday, so he intends to spend the day doing absolutely nothing. Maybe it’ll help him de-stress (although, at this point, that seems like an uphill battle).

* * *

He wakes up on Friday to an email notification from his dorm’s front desk, informing him that he’s received a letter.

Probably a birthday card, maybe from Toni and the other Serpents. They don’t talk much anymore, outside of the occasional life update and birthday or holiday letter, but he’s grateful that they’ve stayed in touch. He’s proud of all of them, too, for leaving Riverdale and doing something with their lives, just like they used to promise each other they would.

Jughead decides to get breakfast at the dining hall and heads by his building’s front desk on the way back to check his mailbox. Sure enough, there’s an envelope with his name on it. For some reason, it doesn’t have a return address.

“Thanks,” he calls out to the front desk attendant on his way out the door. He sits down on a bench outside and opens the letter carefully, sliding his finger under the lip of the envelope so he doesn’t rip it. Once he pulls out the single sheet of paper inside and unfolds it, he realizes that it’s completely blank. He flips it over just to double-check. Nothing.

He walks back into the building, letter in hand.

“Hi,” he says tentatively.

The desk attendant looks up from her laptop. “Hi, can I help you?”

“Yeah, uh. I just got this letter in my mailbox, but it’s blank. No return address, nothing. I’m just trying to figure out where it came from – did it come in with the regular mail?”

“Oh, uh…” The desk staffer – Keziah, her name tag says – twirls a strand of hair around her finger as she thinks. _Betty used to do that_ , his brain offers. She releases the strand and it springs back into place.

“Actually, no, some guy came in asking where your mailbox was. I was here when he came in. He asked for you by name, but he didn’t say anything about what the letter was. Sorry, I wish I could be more helpful.”

“That’s okay, I appreciate it.” Jughead turns the letter over in his hands, running his thumb over the handwritten _JUGHEAD JONES_ on the front. The handwriting looks…familiar. “Weird question, but, uh, what did he look like? The guy who brought it in.”

“Um, kinda tall, white, dark brown hair. I know that doesn’t really narrow it down much, but I don’t really remember anything else that stood out.”

Well, there goes his one guess – or, more accurately, his one hope.

“It’s all good. Thanks anyways,” he says, turning around to leave. Jughead gets halfway out the door, and then remembers that back in their junior year, when Archie was in Canada on the run from Hiram Lodge, he’d disguised himself by dyeing his hair brown. It can’t hurt to ask.

He walks back up to the desk. “Did you happen to notice if he had a scar between his eyebrows? Like, a little horizontal scar right here,” Jughead asks, pointing to the spot on his own face.

Keziah squints, trying to remember. “You know what? Actually, yeah. Right there.” She draws a line between her eyebrows.

It feels like someone’s thrown a bucket of cold water over him.

“Okay. Cool. Thank you,” Jughead says quickly, rushing out the door and back up the stairs to the north wing of the building, where he beelines to his room and closes the door behind himself.

That kind of scar can’t be _that_ unique, except that he doesn’t know anyone else who has one, _and_ whoever left the letter did it on his birthday. It can’t be a coincidence.

He takes the piece of paper out of the envelope again, turning it over and over in his hands like words will just magically appear if he does it long enough.

Ever since Mary called him, memories of his childhood have been flooding back in, and something about the blank letter – combined with his desperation – suddenly triggers memories of Archie and Betty’s (and his own) elementary school obsession with the _Nancy Drew_ books. One day, they’d all followed one of the book’s instructions on how to make invisible ink using lemon juice.

He tells himself that nothing will happen, and very carefully does not get his hopes up, and then says _fuck it_ and decides to try anyway. He holds the paper up over the lightbulb of his desk lamp, close enough that the paper starts to heat up.

“What the fuck,” Jughead whispers to himself as brown lines start to appear, gradually forming letters and words. It takes several minutes of patience until he can finally read the whole thing. Not that there’s very much to read.

Written in small, scribbled letters on the middle of the sheet are five words:

_COME HOME._

_I NEED YOU._


	2. To Riverdale and Back Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> home again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took me so long to update this! been doing a lot of Plot Planning, which isn't all directly relevant to this chapter, but now that i have most of it all planned out, i should be able to post subsequent updates more quickly.

> "If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window  
> is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing  
> river water."
> 
> \- "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out" (Richard Siken)
> 
> "Time went on a different schedule there. Nothing too nasty could happen in such a nice little town. Not there."
> 
> \- _'Salem's Lot_ (Stephen King)

Jughead doesn’t have a choice anymore. As much as he detests the idea of spending any time whatsoever in Riverdale, ever since Mary’s voicemail, part of him has known that he has to go back.

He takes a photo of the letter and the envelope on his phone. He’s going to pack both of them, but he feels better having a digital copy of it, too. Proof, or something like that. Just in case.

He calls Mary back the same day he gets the letter. No use in waiting around. Although he does take a few hours to deal with the emotional blow the letter dealt him, first, and paces around his room for a while before calling Mary, plotting out exactly what he wants to say as he usually does before phone calls.

She deserves to know that Archie is alive – or at least that there’s a strong possibility that he is – but if he tells her about the letter, she might turn it over to the cops as evidence. Which it clearly is, but Jughead isn’t exactly fond of the idea of handing over his only piece of Archie to the police department – and a famously incompetent one at that.

Even though he’ll run the risk of sounding a little tinfoil-hat-esque, he decides to tell her that he thinks Archie is alive, without any extra details.

He’d originally imagined that it would be a comfort to her, the thought that her only son could possibly still be alive, but the long silence on her end of the call after he tells her makes him rethink the decision. What if it just made things worse for her? What if it made her think he was insane?

Mary takes a deep breath. “Jughead, honey, I appreciate that you're trying to help, but losing a child is more painful than anything you can imagine.” Her voice is soft, but thin and worn-out like an old sock, grief and exhaustion peeking through the holes. “It's impossible to process, and I'm doing my best to accept that he's gone and move on. I think you should do the same.”

Jughead is quiet for a moment, trying to swallow down the guilt threatening to choke him. When he thinks he can manage to get a sentence out, he swallows the desperate urge to tell her about the letter – to prove it, to say _look,_ _I promise I’m not crazy_ – and apologizes first.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll just…I’ll just wait and see what happens once I get there. Take it one step at a time, I guess. I don’t want to give up hope yet, but I don’t want to make it any harder on you than it already is.”

“Thank you,” Mary replies. “I know you mean well. If there was any hope left in me that he could be alive, trust me, I would be searching the entire country on foot if I had to. But the signs just don’t seem to point that way, Jug, and I can’t sit around hoping for something that’ll never happen.”

“I get it,” Jughead replies softly.

Mary clears her throat and changes the subject. “So, you _are_ coming back, then?”

“Yeah. I am. I thought it over, and honestly, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to help.”

“That’s great news, it really is. I can’t tell you how grateful I am – and I’m sure Archie would be, too.”

_More than you know_ , he thinks.

Mary adds: “So, when do you think you’ll be coming back?”

Jughead glances out the window at his car, parked in front of the dorm building. “Is tonight too soon?”

* * *

For the sake of avoiding rush-hour traffic – and definitely _not_ because he’s nervous about the trip – Jughead putters around his room for a few more hours, packing occasionally, but mostly just drinking cup after cup of coffee. He’ll need the energy for the drive.

His car is a shitty old little beater, bought back when he’d first gotten his license and needed a vehicle to get from campus to the grocery store and not much else. He’s never driven it more than 50 miles, so the six-hour drive to Riverdale is going to be a gamble.

On his way out the door, Jughead shoots Jabari a text.

_remember how you owe me one? can u take notes for me in class tonight? going home for the weekend._

Once Jughead is sitting in his car, his phone lights up with a response.

_Sure np._

A minute later, Jabari adds:

_Wait. Home?_

Jughead puts his phone in his pocket and starts up the car.

* * *

In the few hours before it starts getting dark out, the drive is pretty scenic, actually. The leaves are starting to turn, and the maps app takes him through several mountainside roads with grand views of valleys and hills covered with orangey-red forests, the trees small enough in the distance that each colorful plume of leaves looks like a brushstroke in a painting.

It’s just his luck that, an hour into the drive, it starts pouring rain. He’s lucky the streets are relatively empty; he’d dodged the 5pm rush, and no one seems to be out and about at 7pm on a Friday. At least not in that part of the country – which, according to his map, is rural Vermont.

By the time he crosses the state line into New York, the rain is pouring hard enough that he has trouble seeing the road in front of him. He turns on his high beams and slows down to a speed that’s well on the safe side of the limit. Without many other cars on the highway, he’s not really worried about an accident; the only real danger is that he might fall asleep. Thankfully, he’d thought ahead and brought a Thermos of coffee with him. It’s mostly cold now, but caffeine is caffeine.

He loses cell reception once he nears Seaside, but he’s familiar enough with the local roads that he thinks he can figure out the way from there as long as he just stays on the same highway until signs for Riverdale start popping up. Driving in silence threatens to make him even more tired, so he switches on the radio and tries to focus on the classic rock station, singing along to first “You Shook Me All Night Long”, then “Welcome to the Jungle”, then “25 or 6 to 4”.

Once he gets far enough out of Seaside that the signs start pointing out directions to Greendale, the radio begins to flicker in and out, David Lee Roth’s voice dissolving into static until it gets too creepy to keep listening. Just as he’s about to turn the radio off, it picks up a signal – probably Greendale’s college radio station – and Roy Orbison’s voice takes over. Thank god. He hadn’t liked the idea of making this drive in silence.

_A candy-colored clown they call the Sandman_

_Tiptoes to my room every night_

_Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper_

_“Go to sleep, everything will be all right.”_

The song is familiar, and he remembers it from watching _Blue Velvet_ back in high school. How very Lynchian.

Jughead switches his turn signal on and takes the exit for Riverdale. As he passes under the green exit sign – the sign bearing a town name he hasn’t seen for years – he shudders involuntarily.

He hums along as Roy Orbison croons _“But just before the dawn, I awake and find you gone, I can't help it, I can't help it, if I cry,”_ trying to drown out the cold feeling swelling up inside him as the road narrows, smooth pavement turning into cracked asphalt, approaching the small sign in the distance Jughead knows so well.

_Welcome to Riverdale: The Town with Pep!_

The song ends as he passes the sign and he switches his high beams off. The radio is silent for a second until a new song starts:

_A candy-colored clown they call the Sandman…_

Wait. What?

Jughead glances down at the radio, wondering if it’s glitching out or losing reception again, but the dashboard radio screen glows blankly up at him, no station name or number to be found.

The song continues to repeat. This time, he doesn’t sing along.

The streets are dark and empty, which he supposes is the best-case scenario: he doesn’t really want to let everyone in town know that he’s back. Best to keep a low profile, at least at first. It’s dark enough now that the trees have lost their color, instead casting spindly black shadows over the road.

He wonders how he never realized that Riverdale doesn’t have streetlights. Maybe it felt normal back then; it was the only thing he was used to. But now that he’s back after living in a decidedly more normal town for a few years, it’s definitely weird. He tries to keep his eyes on the road, away from the shifting dark shapes in the woods. Just a trick of the light, he tells himself.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he spots the neon sign of Pop’s glowing further down the road. Pop is maybe the only person he can trust to keep things to himself, to not tell the entire town about Jughead’s return. And he could use a friendly face right about now.

He remembers the _Register_ article stating that Pop was the last person to see Archie – maybe he knows something, too. Jughead is too worn out from the drive to start investigating right now, although he can’t resist the pull of a burger and a cup of coffee.

The parking lot is mostly empty. Jughead pulls into a spot on the edge of the lot, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. The muscles in his legs spasm as he stands up, complaining from being cramped in a car for six hours, and he winces.

The bell above the door chimes as he walks in, and it sends a wave of nostalgia over him. When he glances around at the gleaming red booths, he almost expects to see Archie sitting in one of them, waiting to tell him the latest development in the Town with Pep’s current mystery.

If only.

Pop is nowhere to be seen behind the counter, so Jughead orders a burger, fries, and a coffee from the tired-looking teenager at the register.

“That’ll be $7.78,” she monotones.

“Thanks,” Jughead says, pulling out his debit card and handing it over.

The cashier narrows her eyes. “We don’t take card, sorry. Cash only.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry.” Jughead rummages around in his wallet and pulls out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. He’d forgotten just how old-school Riverdale was.

As the cashier hands him his change, she asks: “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Jughead laughs dryly and shoves the change into his jacket pocket. “Something like that.”

He makes his way to the back booth, more due to muscle memory than a conscious decision. The only two other occupants of the diner, two well-groomed men in dark overcoats, turn to watch him walk past.

He sits down heavily in the corner booth and glances back at the two men. They look away quickly and resume their conversation. Their voices are hushed and tense, but the conversation is inaudible.

Jughead flips through the menu just for something to do, and is vaguely comforted by the fact that it doesn’t seem to have changed much since he left. Turning the menu over and setting it back down on the table, he realizes with a jolt that Archie’s “missing” poster has been laminated and placed over the back cover.

He flips the menu back over to the front and sets it aside.

Along the edge of the table, someone has taken a knife and crudely carved the word FREAK into the wood. Charming.

He’s startled out of his thoughts by the waiter’s voice.

“Thank you,” he says quickly, taking the plate from her and setting it on top of the carved graffiti.

He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he starts eating. The food is good, sure, but he wonders if maybe nostalgia had given him higher expectations than it deserves. Without the old atmosphere – friends, songs on the jukebox, Pop stopping by to say hi – it’s just a regular diner with pretty standard fare. Mediocre burger and fries, and slightly burnt coffee.

The diner, stripped of all its nostalgic charm, now feels a lot less like a beloved hangout spot with the best burgers and fries in town, and a lot more like what it really was: a Lodge-owned front for an illegal speakeasy where people came to discuss and plan all manner of crimes, in broad daylight, in public. It's a miracle no one got arrested for the shit they talked about in Pop's.

His phone rings, and the screen lights up with Mary’s name. He picks up quickly and holds the phone up to his ear.

“Hey, Jughead, just checking in. How’s the drive?”

“It was…six hours in a car during a thunderstorm. But I’m back in Riverdale now, I stopped by Pop’s.”

“That’s great. I was going to – well, if you’ve already eaten, maybe you don’t want to, but I was going to ask if you’d like to come over for dinner. I know it’s late, and you must be worn out after the drive, so if you’d rather come by tomorrow, that’s fine, too. I can’t say I’ve had much of a regular sleep schedule lately.”

“Oh, I’m always hungry,” he laughs. “And I’m a night owl, so that works for me. Actually, I can’t think of anything that sounds better than a home-cooked meal. I was just finishing up, so I could drive over in a few minutes.”

“Sure. I’m just heating up some leftovers, hope that’s okay. Alice has been bringing me a casserole almost every single day, so…I hope you like casserole.”

“Sounds perfect,” he replies. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Mary says, and Jughead hangs up.

* * *

The drive from Pop’s to the Andrews’ house is one he definitely doesn’t need a map for. It’s strange, the way directions stick around in your head even after such a long time. Within a few minutes, he’s pulling up in front of the familiar yellow house and ringing the doorbell he’s rung countless times before.

He hears the lock click and Mary pulls the door open with a _whoosh_ , immediately wrapping him up in a hug. He laughs awkwardly and pats her on the back, trying not to wonder when the last time anyone hugged him was.

She pulls away, keeping one hand on his shoulder, and looks him up and down.

“Look how tall you are!” she says, sounding every bit like a mom. “Have you grown since I last saw you?”

“I don’t know about _tall_ , but…maybe?”

“And your face! You look so different!” She pinches Jughead’s cheek and he feels his face turn red. He supposes this kind of conversation is a pretty typical part of the trans experience or whatever, but that doesn’t mean he has any clue how to respond.

Mary steps aside to lead him into the kitchen, where two plates are set out on the island with a huge casserole dish between them.

“Wow. Alice is serious about her casseroles.”

Mary laughs. “I’ve been getting one of these almost every day for a month. I don’t know what she thinks I’m doing with them – it’s just me here, and I can’t eat one of these a day. Thank god you’re here so I can stop throwing them out.”

“Well, I’m definitely not complaining,” Jughead replies, draping his coat over the back of one of the chairs and sitting down. “Thank you, by the way. For inviting me. I’m used to college food, so this is a luxury. And I didn’t really want to figure out all the trailer’s facilities this late at night. No idea if it even has running water anymore.”

Mary serves herself and passes the casserole dish to Jughead. “You know you’re welcome to stay here if you want. If you don’t want to go back to the trailer. You could stay in Archie’s room.”

“Um,” Jughead starts. “Thank you, but…it would feel kind of weird sleeping in his room. I don’t want to disturb it, I guess.” His voice grows more serious now that Archie is the subject of conversation.

Mary mirrors his tone. “Sure. I understand. We do have a spare key to the trailer here, if you want to borrow it.”

“That’d be great, thanks. I don’t mind staying there, really. My dad owns it, so it’s probably just been sitting there empty for a few years. Actually, I was probably the last one in there, since he was locked up a while before I left for school.”

Mary _hmms_ in agreement. “Well, feel free to stop by here any time you want. I know it can be weird coming back to an empty house. It was definitely a little weird for me when I got here.”

“When did you come back?” Jughead asks.

“Back at the beginning of September,” Mary answers. “I haven’t been here for very long. I kind of dropped everything back in Chicago once I heard Archie was missing – Alice was the one who told me.”

Jughead nods silently.

“She can be…a lot,” Mary continues, “but I can’t deny that sometimes, it’s helpful having someone in town who minds everyone else’s business except their own.”

Jughead laughs softly. “Some things never change, I guess.”

“Not with her. Now that Betty’s off in college, I think Alice is bored. The _Register_ has been _very_ prolific in the last few years, from what I can tell. It seems like she’s been talking to the police more than I have about this whole thing, to be honest.”

“Speaking of the police, who's the sheriff in town now?” Jughead asks.

“Oh, I forgot, you wouldn't have heard about that. A year or two ago, Hiram Lodge proposed the idea of _not_ re-electing a sheriff. Tom Keller was retiring, and no one in town really wanted to take up the position. I guess no one wanted to bring in an outsider, either. Hiram probably just wanted to keep his… _business_ as far away from the long arm of the law as possible.”

“Hiram's still in town, then?”

“In town?” Mary sets down her mug and looks at Jughead in mild disbelief. “No...he's dead. That's – that's why all of this is happening in the first place. He had some kind of illness, some neuromuscular thing, I think. Seems like everyone was pretty shocked by it. You really didn't know?” she asks, her tone soft like she's talking to a scared dog.

Jughead just shakes his head. _Good riddance_ , he thinks, but stops himself from saying it out loud.

Mary continues. “I mean, Archie told me you'd cut ties, but I didn't realize how—”

“I had to.” Jughead's expression is impassive. He tries not to crack under the pressure of that memory, or the others it stirs up.

Mary's gaze softens; she takes a careful sip of her coffee. “I know, sweetheart.” _Or an angry dog_ , he thinks.

Jughead knows she's not pitying him, he knows better – knows Mary isn't the villain here, for god's sake – but something in her voice, something about this _town_ , brings back swaths of memories of adults' voices placating him.

He's not that kid anymore. He won't let himself become anyone's charity case again.

“It's fine, really. You know, with college and everything, I pretty much got to start over again. To be honest, I didn't really plan on ever coming back. There's not much left for me here.” He gestures around the room, meaning _here_ and _this whole town_. “My dad's in prison. My mom's in fucking Croatia, for all I know. Archie and Betty—” He realizes then that his voice is getting louder, almost frantic, and he reels it back in, setting his hand back down on the table. “They had each other.”

He inhales sharply and continues. “Anyways, I just kind of started over when I got to Massachusetts. I didn't really get too homesick or anything, and as far as I was concerned, I didn't want fuck-all from Riverdale or anyone in it.”

He doesn't mention the nights he stayed up combing through Archie's Facebook feed, staring at their message history, watching the little green dot next to his name blink on and off, and feeling a little like Gatsby on the docks.

“I mean – of course I still care,” he adds quickly, realizing he's talking to said Archie's mother. The mother of a missing kid.

Mary nods at him, an expression on her face that Jughead can’t quite read. He changes the topic, not wanting to expose any more of his personal relationship history tonight.

“So, without a sheriff, what’s the law enforcement situation here? Riverdale always seemed pretty…passionate about law and order. I’m guessing Hiram didn’t exactly campaign for setting up a restorative justice circle.”

“Rockland County still has its own officers, they’re the ones helping out with the investigation here. Well—” Mary gestures with air quotes, “ _helping out._ Standing around and writing things down, and not much else. From what I’ve heard, they’ve sent officers to search around different areas of the town once or twice, but other than that, seems like they just sit in the police station and eat donuts, for all I can tell. I guess people here just prefer to…handle things on their own.”

A chill runs through Jughead at the implications of that statement, whether Mary meant it that way or not.

“What about the prison?” he asks.

“Well, without a police force, you can imagine there aren’t enough arrests to keep the prison occupied – not that I’m against that. Last I heard, they released some people and relocated the rest around the state. Hiram sold the building to someone, I’m not sure who, a few months before he died. God knows what they’re going to do with it. What kind of person buys up an abandoned prison in a tiny town like this?”

Mary sips her coffee. “I guess Hiram wasn’t too worried about it. The Lodges were already out of Riverdale by then.”

“They left?” Jughead asks. “I guess I’m not surprised.”

“Moved back to the city. Archie kept working for Hiram here in Riverdale, sounds like Hiram put him in charge of all his business in town.”

“What was Archie doing for him?”

Mary takes another sip of coffee. “I don’t really know. He never seemed very eager to talk about it.

“Huh.” After a second, Jughead asks: “Did Archie know Hiram was sick?”

Mary thinks for a minute. “Well, I guess he must have. If Hiram had told anyone, it’d probably be him. Maybe Archie was going to take over for him after he died.”

“Did Archie ever mention anything about that?”

“No, not to me. We talked on the phone a few times after Hiram died, but he never brought it up.”

“Do you know anything about what Archie was doing in those last couple of days? I haven’t been able to find out anything about his last movements, anything like that. I don’t even know if it would be helpful, but it’d be a start.”

“Alice said he was hanging out in the garage a lot, but that’s all I know. He told me he was working on the car – the one he and his dad started fixing up a few years ago.”

“I remember that car,” Jughead says softly. “I couldn’t believe that thing was safe for the roads.”

“I’m not actually sure it was,” Mary says with a laugh. “That’s Archie for you.”

“So he finally finished it?” Jughead asks.

“No, it doesn’t look like it. It’s weird, you know, I went in the garage to take a look at it a little while after he…disappeared, and it still looked pretty much the same. Almost didn’t look like he’d worked on it at all.”

Jughead stands up to take his plate over to the sink. He has to set it on the counter because the sink is piled up with dishes.

“Sorry about the mess,” Mary says. “I was planning on cleaning it up before you got here.”

“It’s okay, really. I can run the dishwasher if you want.”

“If you don’t mind, that’d be a huge help. Thank you.” She sets her plate next to his on the counter as he opens the dishwasher and begins to load plates and bowls onto the racks. “I’m pretty wiped, so I think I’ll head to bed while you do that. Oh, and the spare key is in the drawer under the microwave,” she adds.

“Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” Mary replies.

“Oh, by the way,” Jughead starts. “I was thinking I’d go to the police station tomorrow, see if I can talk to any of the investigators and find out what they know. From what you said, it doesn’t sound like it’ll be much, but I might as well try. They’ll meet with me on a Saturday, right?”

“Sure,” Mary replies. “The lead investigator’s name is Mulholland. Ask for him. He’s not the friendliest guy I’ve ever met, but…he’ll talk to you, at least. Can’t promise it’ll be a very pleasant conversation, though.”

Jughead half-smiles. “I don’t mind. As long as it’ll help.”

Mary nods, smiling sadly, and turns to walk down the hallway. The stairs creak as she walks upstairs, and then Jughead’s alone in the silent kitchen. Doing the dishes is peaceful, in a strange way, the mindless routine of it keeping his hands busy while he thinks.

Once the dishwasher is running, its low mechanical hum filling the dim kitchen, Jughead listens carefully for any sounds coming from upstairs. It’s silent, so Mary must be in bed already. Whether out of morbid curiosity or a genuine desire to investigate, Jughead isn’t sure, but either way, he decides to start his search by looking around Archie’s room. Just in case.

* * *

His room is largely the same as Jughead remembers it. The dark blue walls, the movie posters littering the walls like a stamp collection. The punching bag in the middle of the room – so Archie’s still got that old pent-up anger. The model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. Jughead touches one lightly, making it spin in a lazy circle, dust floating off its wings as it moves. Archie must not have used his punching bag in a while, then, if the other hanging items have been stable enough to collect dust. Maybe he finally found another coping mechanism – one that doesn’t involve beating himself up or wearing himself out.

Even the bedding is the same; Jughead recognizes the familiar worn plaid from years of sleepovers. He’s tempted to sit down on the bed, to test if it’s still as soft as he remembers it, but it feels somehow sacrilegious. It’s not that he doesn’t want to mess up a neatly-made bed – quite the opposite, actually; the covers are as messy as they always used to be. Like Archie threw them off in the morning and didn’t bother making the bed in his haste to get on with the day. Jughead runs his hand over them, thinking _Archie was here. Archie touched this._ His thoughts are interrupted by a realization.

When Archie last got out of this bed, he probably had no idea he wasn’t coming back.

For some reason, that’s what does it. Jughead hasn’t cried since he first listened to Mary’s voicemail, but it’s that singular image: Archie waking up one day, touching the same sheets that Jughead is touching now, getting out of bed like any other day, walking out the front door, and disappearing, maybe forever. It hurts so bad it becomes physical, like someone’s squeezing Jughead’s ribs and crushing his lungs.

It’s all he can do to sit down somewhat carefully as all the muscles in his body tell him to collapse. He rests his elbows on his knees, the heel of one hand pressed against his eye, the other still gripping a handful of the covers.

He feels the terrible pressure in his throat, the ache in his chest, all the signs threatening that he’s about to cry, but the tears never come. It makes him even more miserable, knowing how pathetic he must look, balled up on Archie’s floor, shaking with dry sobs but still _not crying_.

Part of his brain is well aware that this is a normal side effect of hormone replacement therapy, but the rest of him keeps digging himself further into that pit of grief, the horrible kind of grief where you’ve lost someone and everything feels fucked-up and broken and even in the depths of misery, you can’t help but think about how ridiculous you are for being so dramatic.

After a few minutes, Jughead can’t stand pitying himself any longer, and he forces himself to stand up again. He pulls himself up with one hand on Archie’s bedside table, and accidentally knocks something off in the process. A large book lands on the floor with a _thump_.

Jughead picks it up and moves to set it back down on the table, figuring he should try to keep Archie’s room in the same condition he found it, but the title catches his eye. _The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_. Huh. He’d never known Archie to be a Douglas Adams fan.

He sits down on Archie’s bed and starts to leaf through the pages. The lines are familiar from his middle-school days, when he was borderline obsessed with the books even though he never quite _got_ them. He had always tried to get Archie to read them, but Archie wasn’t a sci-fi fan. He keeps skimming through the pages, half because he’s nostalgic and half because he’s desperate for anything to tell him _something_ about Archie.

The spine cracks as he’s about a third of the way through. Weird, considering that the book looks pretty old. The cover’s faded enough to be at least ten years old. Jughead looks at the pages more closely, and they, too, are in strangely new condition, crisp and free of marks despite the yellowing around the edges. Why did Archie bother keeping the book around – keeping it on his bedside table, even – for so long if he never read it?

Once Jughead gets to the middle of the book, he realizes why.

The uneven weight of the pages makes the book fall open on his lap, and there, in the middle of book three, someone has crudely carved out a sort of L shape, an inch or two deep. Jughead spares a millisecond to mourn the destroyed book, but Archie probably had bigger concerns on his mind than sci-fi. The compartment is empty now, but it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what it was used for.

Jughead doesn’t know whether he should be comforted or unsettled by the knowledge that, wherever the hell he went, Archie has a gun.

Either way, whatever compelled him to leave town had scared him enough to make him think he’d need one.

Jughead walks back down the stairs quietly, careful not to wake Mary up. He heads into the dining room, where papers about the case are strewn all over the table. There's a stack of “MISSING” flyers, the same ones he'd seen on Facebook and in Pop’s. They still take his breath away: less so than the first time, now that the shock has worn off, but the same old memories flood in.

When he stares at the photo for too long, it feels like Archie is actually looking at him, seeing him for the first time in three years. He imagines Archie’s face leaning over a blank sheet of paper and painting letters onto it in invisible ink. Despite everything, he can’t help but smile at the mental image.

Jughead wonders how many people who don’t know Archie will see the flyer. He tries to imagine himself as a stranger looking into those bright eyes, faced with the warmth of Archie’s smile for the very first time. What would they think? Would they even care? If he didn’t know Archie, would he even stop to look twice at the flyer?

He can’t keep up the illusion for very long. Archie's face is too deeply embedded in all of his childhood memories, like a drawing on carbonless paper that produces echoes of itself on all the sheets of paper underneath. Faint traces that remain even after the top sheet has been torn off.

When he looks back into Archie’s eyes, something in his expression feels accusatory, the glint in his eyes boring into Jughead’s soul. _I needed you_ , they seem to say. _Why can’t you find me?_

_I’m sorry_ , Jughead thinks. _I’m trying_.

He wants desperately to find Archie, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. But at the same time, he’s starting to suspect that if he does find him, he won’t be the Archie that Jughead remembers.

* * *

The combination of the six-hour drive and all the catching-up he did with Mary mean that Jughead is exhausted by the time he gets to the trailer. He barely has enough energy to turn the key in the door.

Once he gets inside, he makes his way to his old room. Everything still looks exactly as he left it – no one else had a key, so he must be the first person to enter it in three years.

Jughead sets his backpack down on the floor, tosses his hoodie and jeans to the foot of the bed, and climbs under the covers. The blankets smell a little weird, the kind of dusty smell that settles over a home that hasn’t been lived in for a while, but he barely registers it.

He’s asleep almost before his head hits the pillow, only to jolt awake a few minutes later, that peculiar half-asleep feeling of falling lingering even though he’s motionless in bed. He groans and closes his eyes again, willing sleep to take over after the brief adrenaline rush. Roy Orbison’s voice floats through his head again.

_In dreams I walk with you, in dreams I talk to you…_

As he finally falls asleep, he swears he hears a soft echo of Archie’s voice, telling him: _you’re running out of time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! drop a comment if you enjoyed! <3


	3. The Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> paths open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka the one where jughead says acab as many times as possible without literally saying acab. who knows maybe one day he will actually say it. i think he deserves to   
> i guess this was technically sooner than the last update, but not as soon as i wanted it to be. my finals are just about to start, so i may not be able to work on this much at all for the next two weeks, but after that i'll have jack shit to do besides write this, so. woo!
> 
> cw for a brief, non-detailed mention of attempted sexual assault (consistent with plot events in s2). see end notes for a more detailed (spoilery) explanation.

> He was pointing at the moon but I was looking at his hand. He was dead anyway, a ghost. I’m surprised I saw his hand at all. All this was prepared for me. All this was set in motion long ago. I live in someone else’s future. _I stayed as long as I could,_ he said. _Now look at the moon._
> 
> \- "The Worm King's Lullaby" (Richard Siken)

“Jones?” An officer calls out, eyes scanning the room from where she stands in the corner.

Rather than calling attention to himself, Jughead gathers up his bag, jacket, and notebook, piling everything into his arms and making his way over to her.

“The lead investigator is ready to see you,” she says, turning on her heel. She strides down the corridor briskly, without glancing back at him, and stops abruptly in front of a light wood door. Other than the plaque reading _SHERIFF_ , it’s identical to every other door in the hallway.

She raps twice on the door, sharp and loud.

“Come in,” a deep voice calls from inside the room.

Jughead turns around, checking to see if the officer is going to come in with him, but she’s already gone. He shrugs to himself and opens the door, muscles straining against its surprising weight.

Inside, a large man presides over the sole piece of furniture in the room, a wooden desk. The office _screams_ bureaucracy: all beige walls and linoleum floors, with a stack of metal folding chairs against the wall. Jughead grabs one and unfolds it to sit in front of the investigator’s desk, wincing as the metal creaks with disuse.

“So, Mr. Jones. What’s got you so interested in the Andrews case?” The investigator’s voice is low but nasally, with a hint of a Maine accent.

Jughead blinks in surprise. He’d planned on being the one asking questions, not answering them.

“Well, I knew Archie. He was my best friend.”

“Was?” The investigator – his name tag reads Mulholland – repeats. Officer Mulholland? Detective Mulholland? Jughead isn’t sure. He settles for referring to him as just Mulholland in his head.

“We haven’t spoken in a few years.”

“But you came all the way back here to help with the investigation?” Mulholland shifts back in his chair and raises an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Jughead answers hesitantly. “His mom asked me to.”

“Speaking of Ms. Moore—”The officer shuffles through a stack of papers on his desk before pulling out a legal pad covered in a tiny, illegible scrawl. “She told me a little about you. Said you and Archie had some kind of falling out before you left town.”

Jughead narrows his eyes. He can’t blame Mary for trying to give the investigators as much information as possible, but did she have to bring that into it?

“Yeah. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Just high school relationship drama.”

“Big enough of a deal for you to leave town and never come back?”

Jughead doesn’t answer.

“What happened?” Mulholland’s chair creaks as he leans in.

Jughead sighs. If he avoids too many questions, he knows he’ll actually start to look guilty.

“Just – stuff that happens to everyone. My girlfriend cheated on me with him. It doesn’t even matter anymore. I haven’t talked to either of them in forever.”

“Would you say you were…angry with Mr. Andrews?” The investigator’s tone is careful, level, but Jughead doesn’t like the implications.

“I mean, I was, but it’s been three years. I’m over it.” He shrugs, trying to look nonchalant.

“Hmm.” Mulholland’s face remains blank, impassive. “You said relationship drama. Did you and Mr. Andrews—”

“No.” Jughead cuts him off. “We were just friends.”

If he never finds Archie, he’ll stick to that story for the rest of his life.

Of course, it’s not really that simple. Things rarely are. But if he lets slip even the tiniest hint that he ever had feelings for Archie – that their relationship, though unlabeled, was undoubtedly closer and more confusing than friendship, and never _just_ anything – he’ll be Rockland County’s number one suspect before he can say ‘no comment.’

“Ri-ight.” Mulholland draws the word out, giving it two syllables.

Jughead likes him less and less with every word that comes out of his mouth.

“Sorry, but I don’t think I have any information that can help you. I came here to ask some questions about the investigation. I’m just trying to find out as much as I can – trying to help his mom.”

“Well,” Mulholland drawls. “The police are doing everything they can to find him.”

Jughead tries not to roll his eyes. How many times has he heard that same exact phrase?

“Have you talked to anyone who saw him before he disappeared – besides Pop Tate? Have they found anything indicating where he might’ve gone?”

“Look, kid.” Mulholland closes the file, the papers landing in a stack with a thunk. “Ms. Moore told me about your little crime-solving gig in high school. Sounds like you weren’t half bad at it. _But,_ it also sounds like the sheriff back then wouldn’t have known a clue if it was sitting right in front of his face.” He sighs and crosses his arms over his chest with a _what-can-ya-do_ look. “You got lucky. It doesn’t make you a private investigator.”

 _You’re not wrong_ , Jughead thinks, _but I don’t like where this is going_.

“Rockland County police are following up on all the leads we’ve gotten. And, frankly, we’re not in the business of recruiting teenagers to help with investigations.” Mulholland meets Jughead’s eyes.

It has technically only been a few weeks since Jughead was a teenager, so he ignores the remark. “How many leads do you have, then?” he asks, desperately hoping that the investigator will give him something to go on.

Mulholland’s gaze doesn’t waver. “I think the best thing you can do right now is to stay with Ms. Moore. Keep her company, make sure she’s okay. There’s nothing for you to do here.”

_If this guy thinks Mary’s some kind of damsel in distress, he’s never met her._

The old Jughead – his high school self – might’ve pressed further, or tried harder to squeeze some tiny shred of information out of him, but the investigator’s questions – about his fight with Archie, their relationship, whether he was angry – have put him on edge, and he’s ready to get the hell out of the police station.

“Right,” he says, pulling his jacket back on and securing the strap of his messenger bag on his shoulder. “Well, thank you for your time.”

“My pleasure,” Mulholland replies, mouth curling up into something that he probably thinks is a smile. “I’ll show you the way out.”

They pass through the waiting room again, and this time it’s no longer empty. The sole occupant is a severe, sharply dressed woman gazing down at her phone, fingers flying over the keyboard. He glances away, not wanting to look nosy, and follows Mulholland through the glass door.

Once the two are outside, Mulholland claps Jughead on the shoulder with a little more force than necessary.

“Look, kid. I know you’re trying to help, tryin’ to find your friend and all. But trust me, there are a lot more interesting things someone your age can do than sitting around in a police station flipping through papers all day. Let the police do their jobs; you take care of Mr. Andrews’ mom. Okay?”

Jughead shrugs the investigator’s hand off with a slight dip of the shoulder and takes a miniscule step away. “Got it.” He glances through the doors again, at the woman still tapping away on her phone. “One last question?”

“Fine,” Mulholland says, with a little smile like he’s humoring a child’s story – an expression that seems to say _oh, aren’t you adorable, you think you’re acting like a grown-up._

Jughead nods his head at the door. “Do you know who that woman in the waiting room is?”

“You don’t know her?” Mulholland asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“No, never seen her before in my life. I don’t think she’s from around here.”

“Hmm. Well, you got that right. Certainly not a local. Says she’s from Skaneateles. She was here yesterday, trying to help out with the investigation.”

“What does she have to do with it?”

Mulholland gives him that smile again. “Thought you said _one_ question.”

“I did.” Jughead stares back at him, blank and impassive.

Mulholland shakes his head. “You’re determined, I’ll give you that. Well, sounds like Mr. Andrews and her son were friends in high school. Nick, I think she said his name was. Did you know him?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Jughead answers. He runs through a mental yearbook of everyone he can remember from school, trying to place the name Nick, but comes up empty. Something is missing – he knew _all_ of Archie’s friends.

“Nick St. Clair? Doesn’t ring a bell?”

Jughead’s face goes hot and his palms break out in a cold sweat. He wipes his hands on his jeans. The surname jogged his memory, all right; he remembers that creep. But Nick and Archie were hardly _friends._ Unless you can call mutual beat-downs and attempting to sexually assault Archie’s girlfriend friendship _._

“Nope, sorry. Don’t think I ever met him. No idea what his mom would be doing in Riverdale.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, fidgeting restlessly and hoping Mulholland will take the bait.

“Well, apparently her son and Mr. Andrews were in business together. They were supposed to meet some time back in September, had some meeting scheduled at the old Lodge place. They didn’t hear about the disappearance until Nick was in town, obviously; Riverdale news doesn’t travel far.”

Jughead wishes he were taking notes. He has his notebook, but he doesn’t think Mulholland will appreciate him whipping it out right now, after all his bullshit about minding his own business and taking care of Mary.

“Nick was supposed to stay in town for a few days and then head back home, but his mom hasn’t heard from him in almost two weeks.”

“He’s not still in town, is he?” Jughead asks.

He knows the answer is obvious, but maybe he can put himself on Mulholland’s good side if he plays the part of the innocent, narrow-minded journalist kid. He’s dealt with enough men like Mulholland to know that you can keep them talking forever, more or less, as long as they feel like they’re teaching you something.

“Nope. She thinks he’s missing, thinks maybe whatever happened to Archie involves Nick somehow, too. Here’s the thing: most of the time, when an adult disappears, it’s because they just fucked off somewhere to be left alone for a little while. Probably what happened with him. But, hey, information is information, and she said she’ll give us everything she knows if it might help us find Nick.”

 _Everything she knows?_ Jughead thought. _What else is there to know?_

* * *

Jughead finds himself heading to Pop’s without consciously deciding on a destination. It just makes sense to him, somehow – even if nothing in town, even Pop’s, feels normal anymore, he can always rely on the comforting shittiness of diner coffee.

He takes up residence in the back booth again, and doesn’t waste any time in pulling out his notebook and jotting down everything he remembers from the conversation.

  * _St. Clair at police station – provided info (?)_
  * _Nick and Archie in business together_
  * _Supposed to meet at the Pembrooke last month – Business related to Lodges?_
  * _Nick missing for 2 wks_



After a few minutes, the page is still mostly blank, but he finally has _something_ to go on. He flips his notebook shut, drains the last of his coffee, and heads out.

He spends the drive back to the trailer constructing a sort of mini-investigation-board in his head, with imaginary pieces of string connecting Archie and the St. Clairs and the Lodges. He’s sure the three are connected. He just has to figure out how.

The imaginary whiteboard in his head is wiped clean when he realizes that the parking spots in front of his dad’s trailer are occupied by two white police cars. In the quickly-dimming late afternoon light, he can see two uniformed men milling around in front of the door. The Rockland police must be _really_ short on leads if their officers are responding to petty complaints – at least, he hopes that’s all this is.

Jughead pulls in next to another trailer; it looks unoccupied, so he figures he’s not taking up anyone’s spot. The officers don’t seem to notice him as he gets out of the car, but once he approaches the trailer, both of their heads turn toward him. He clears his throat and tries to project confidence and naivete, hoping that the interaction will be over soon if he acts like a good law-abiding citizen.

“Is there a problem, officers?”

Instead of answering, one officer – tall but unassuming, with a mousy brown combover – asks: “Is this your trailer?”

“Yes. Well – no, my father owns it, but I’m staying in town for a few nights.”

“Ah.” The two officers glance at each other, nodding. “We got a tip from the landlord that there was an unregistered guest living on the property.”

“I’m only here for a few nights. But, wait, my dad owns the trailer. Doesn’t that mean he can do whatever he wants with it? He’s letting me stay as long as I want.” The last part is a lie, but the officers don’t know enough to notice. There’s an upside to dealing with non-local law enforcement, inasmuch as there can be an upside to getting harassed by the cops: unlike local small-town cops or the sheriff, they don’t know everyone’s business, so they can’t tell if you’re bullshitting.

“According to the landlord, your dad owns the trailer, but not the land it’s parked on. So he’s still gotta abide by the rules and regulations, which means guests have to register at the park office and pay a fee.”

 _I have to pay a fee to live in my family’s own fucking property?_ That’s capitalism for ya. It figures that the one useful thing his dad ever gave him would have a catch.

“Oh. Got it. I’m only here for one more night, so can I just…” He trails off as the officers exchange a few words.

The second officer – shorter, about the same age as the other, but time has been kinder to this one and left him with a silvery blond flat-top – turns towards Jughead. “One more night. Next time, gotta pay the fee.”

“That’s fine. Thanks.” He cringes internally but doesn’t let his disgust show. The officer with the combover nods at him – his hair stays glued in place – and both climb into their cars.

Jughead watches their headlights shrink as they head down Main Street, back to the Northside. Thank god it’s his last night in town. He doesn’t have cash for the fee, and the last thing he needs is the police department breathing down his neck. Back at school, he’ll be able to sort everything out on his own without feeling like he’s being watched – he just needs to figure out what to do tomorrow before the drive back.

Once the headlights disappear, Jughead finally lets out a sigh and opens the door. He realizes, as soon as he’s indoors, that he hadn’t even had to take his key out. He could’ve sworn he’d locked the trailer this morning. He never forgets to lock the door. A lifetime of paranoia (and the fact that he’d grown up in the murder capital of the world) mean that Jughead is always on high alert when it comes to locking doors and windows, basically everything short of barring the doors.

He chalks it up to exhaustion and pre-investigation jitters, and tries to put the thought out of his mind.

All the police interaction throughout the day – more than he hopes to ever have to endure again – has worn Jughead out, but he knows he won’t be able to shut his brain off and get to sleep unless he gets his thoughts down on paper. He decides to make a crude sort of investigation board, so he can have a diagram to look at instead of trying to sort through everything in his head.

He pulls his notebook out of his backpack and tears out the page with his notes from Pop’s, then grabs a roll of tape from the kitchen counter and sticks the page to a wall, at about eye-level. Next, he walks back into the kitchen to grab the couple of papers he’d left there the night before: the “missing” flyer and Archie’s letter. He won’t have much to go on, but three pieces of evidence is a start.

The flyer is right on the table where he’d left it the night before. Archie’s face still sends a small, sharp feeling through his chest when he picks up the flyer, but the feeling is quickly replaced by a much bigger, much colder sensation, as he stares down at the empty table.

The letter is gone.

Jughead tries to stay calm, sure that he just put it somewhere else and forgot about it. He glances around the room and wills his hands to stop shaking. The kitchen counters are empty, ditto the coffee table and end tables in the living room. In his bedroom, all the surfaces are bare.

He rushes back into the kitchen and falls hard to his knees in front of his backpack. Abandoning all hope of staying calm and rational, he pulls things out of the bag a fistful at a time, tossing socks and pens and pencils every which way and sending things clattering across the kitchen floor. He’s panting by the time the bag is empty, and there’s still no sign of Archie’s letter.

“Fuck,” he says aloud. His breath is starting to come in high-pitched, wheezy little inhales. He stands up quickly and fills up a glass of water at the kitchen sink, forcing himself to drink the entire thing in a desperate attempt to hold off the threat of hyperventilation. A few rivulets of water run down his neck, and he sets the glass back down hard. His breath is coming a little more regularly, and he tries to keep counting the inhales and exhales to stave off his anxiety.

Activating his parasympathetic nervous system, while great for reducing anxiety, does approximately nothing whatsoever to stop the nausea swelling inside him. He lost the letter. The last piece he had of Archie. The last real proof that he wasn’t dead.

Except – maybe he didn’t _lose_ it at all. He yanks the trailer door open and examines the doorknob from the outside. No signs of forced entry; it definitely wasn’t crowbar-ed open, but he remembers from the few times he’d gotten locked out as a kid that the landlord – Albin, he thinks – holds a spare key for every trailer in the park.

And if the police already knew that his dad owned the trailer but not the land, there’s only one person they could’ve talked to. Albin had always seemed like a slimy little bastard, even when Jughead was a kid, and it wouldn’t be the first time a landlord had screwed over his tenants to lick the police department’s boots.

Jughead chugs another glass of water and turns around to survey the damage, forearms and lower back resting against the linoleum counter. The kitchen looks like it’s been hit by a bomb; his bag’s contents are strewn over a ten-foot radius, stretching as far as the couch on one side and nearly into the hallway on the other.

His phone is still resting on the table – at least he managed to set _that_ down before Hulk-ing out on his backpack – and a quick glance at the screen reminds him of the photo he’d taken before leaving his dorm. Maybe intuition is real after all. Mentally crossing his fingers, Jughead scrolls through his most recent photos and exhales heavily when he finds the letter.

Even though losing the letter itself – the hard copy that Archie had actually _touched_ and _held_ and given him – feels like he’s had salt rubbed in a wound, at least he has proof that it existed. That he’s not living in some kind of Twilight Zone mind-fuck where he can’t trust his own reality. As long as he hangs onto his sanity, he can survive this. He needs to. He has a sneaking suspicion that, here in town, his own senses might be the last thing he can trust.

* * *

On Mary’s invitation, Jughead returns to the Andrews’ house on Sunday to poke around a little more, just in case either of them had missed anything. Mary assures him that she’s searched the house from top to bottom, which gives Jughead an excuse to explore one place he’d wanted to go ever since he’d arrived: the treehouse.

Climbing up is almost disappointingly easy now; the branches are low enough that he could almost pull himself up onto the platform without even having to jump. He climbs up the hard way anyways, grabbing hold of a tree branch and wincing at the familiar old feeling of bark biting into his palms. He braces his foot on the little knobby bark growth they’d always used as a step, and hoists himself in through the tiny doorway.

He can’t remember the last time he’d been in the treehouse. The walls are covered in scribbles, permanent marker drawings of little stick-figure Jughead-and-Archie, recognizable only by the pointy crown and the messy splotches of red marker, respectively. There are a few giant black patches where one of them had written a swear word and then covered it up as thoroughly as possible before their parents could see it.

Even sitting down, Jughead has to hunch over so his head doesn’t touch the roof. He leans over and runs his fingers over one of the drawings, like somehow it might jog his memory or tell him what he needs to do next. Nothing of the sort happens; the wall is just plywood, the marker lines impossible to feel.

Sitting back down and crossing his legs, he glances up at the roof to check if the hole is still there. The broken beam is right where he’d remembered it; it must have been there for at least ten years at this point. Fred had always said he’d get around to fixing it. Jughead shakes the thought out of his head, instead picturing the way he and Archie used to use it as a sort of sniper’s perch during water balloon fights, back when their hands were small enough to fit through the broken beam and chuck water balloons at whoever their opponents were (usually a parent doing yard work – depending on who it was, their attack would either be met with a disgruntled shout or with a rowdy cheer and a responding blast from the garden hose).

He remembers their secret compartment, then: the board in the floor they’d pried up to hide snacks and Halloween candy for refueling in the middle of brutal water-balloon warfare. Jughead feels along the floorboards, prodding at them until the end of one pops up. He pulls the board out of the way and peers into the empty space below the floor. Nothing but a fossilized bag of Cheez-Its and an old Snickers wrapper. He reaches in to pull the wrapper out, figuring he should throw it in the trash, and feels his fingertips brush the edge of something smooth. He sticks his hand further into the dusty old compartment and grabs hold of the object, a small, rounded piece of metal.

As he pulls it out, he realizes it’s a cell phone. An old one, from the looks of it – it’s thick and silver, with the kind of keypad where you have to press 7 four times to type an S. He doesn’t recognize the phone, and can’t figure out why it’d be up _here_ of all places.

Jughead flips the screen open with his thumb. Nothing. He finds the power button on the side and holds it down. Still nothing.

Maybe Mary would know why it’s up here, or at least she might have a charger for it. Jughead briefly considers telling her about the letter while he’s at it, but he can see that from an outsider’s perspective, an unmarked letter isn’t particularly convincing evidence, and he doesn’t want to get Mary’s hopes up until he’s absolutely sure he can find Archie. Alive.

Mary is on the phone when Jughead comes back inside, using her professional Lawyer Voice, so Jughead puts the flip phone in his pocket and starts making lunch. There’s a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese in the cupboard, which will do well enough. He makes up two plates, although he has no idea if Mary even regards the stuff as edible. She usually seems like kind of a health nut – eats what his dad would’ve called “rabbit food” – and, to be honest, the mac and cheese is rather suspiciously orange. He wouldn’t blame her for turning it down.

Maybe Archie’s disappearance is freaking everyone out to the point of stress-eating potentially radioactive mac and cheese, or maybe Mary’s just more chill than he thought, because she takes a plate from him, smiling, and pours them each a mug of coffee.

When they’re both nearly done eating, Jughead pulls the flip phone out of his pocket and sets it on the table.

“What’s that?” Mary asks with her mouth full.

Jughead shrugs. “I dunno. I was up in the treehouse and found it in this little secret compartment Archie and I used to use when we were kids. It’s dead, so I can’t check it. I thought you might know whose it was, or have a charger for it.”

“No, sorry, I don’t think I’ve seen it before. I mean, I guess it could’ve been Fred’s, but—”

“But why would it be up in the treehouse?”

“Yeah. Exactly. That’s weird, I wish I knew. I doubt there’s a charger for it – or if there is, I haven’t seen it. Maybe check in the garage? Fred kept a bin of old electronics stuff out there. I don’t think he ever actually used any of the stuff he saved; it’s probably all just a rat’s nest of wires now, but you’re welcome to look.”

“I will, thanks. If I can’t find anything out there, I’ll stop by a Superior Sale or something on the way back to school tonight.”

Mary nods, and Jughead rinses off his plate and puts it in the dishwasher before grabbing the key to the garage.

* * *

As he opens the garage door, he’s greeted by a familiar smell: a dusty mix of wood and mildew and gasoline. It might’ve been a little unpleasant if he didn’t associate the scent with good memories of Archie and Fred: their impromptu garage jam sessions, Archie on electric guitar and Fred on acoustic; or hanging out while Archie worked on the car, watching him from the beat-up old armchair in the corner and trying to ignore the way the muscles in Archie’s forearms twisted and flexed.

Unlike most of the house, the garage looks exactly the way he’d remembered it, down to the car in the middle of the room. Archie’s old amp is still tucked away in the corner. Jughead finds the cardboard box labeled _Tech_ and roots around in the tangled wires, but none of them look small enough to be a phone charger, so he gives up after a few fruitless minutes.

Even though he’s already done what he came out here for, Jughead feels pulled by the room’s energy, compelled to stay for just a little longer. For some reason, Archie’s presence – or the lack of it, maybe – is more pronounced here than it was in his bedroom. Jughead remembers Mary’s comment about how long Archie had been spending in the garage during the few weeks before he’d disappeared, and wonders if that’s why. Like Archie’s spirit is haunting the place he spent most of his time in. Jughead shudders a little. _Haunting_ was the wrong word.

Still thinking of that conversation with Mary, he walks over to the faded red car to take a closer look. It, too, looks just the way he remembered. It’s still missing its hood, still has the goofy horn Fred had mounted onto the windshield as a joke. Jughead peers down at the exposed machinery where the car’s hood should be, noticing that the metal bears a thin coating of dust. He runs a finger absentmindedly along the engine cover and sends a few dust particles flying.

_If Archie was working on the car so damn much before he left, why does it look exactly like it did three years ago?_

Jughead doesn’t let himself ponder the question for very long. He has a six-hour drive looming ahead of him; that’ll give him plenty of time to think, and he wants to get the hell out of Riverdale before dark. 

* * *

He says goodbye to Mary with a firm promise that he’ll come back to keep investigating once the semester is over. He has just under two months left of classes, and the few leads he’s picked up while in town will give him some viable avenues for research. At least more viable than stalking random ex-classmates on social media.

Jughead stops by Pop’s to grab one last shitty coffee for the road, and as he heads out, he turns his phone’s volume up and puts Spotify on shuffle. He doesn’t want to mess with the creepy local radio stations again.

With each _Riverdale_ sign that passes behind him on his way out of town, he feels himself relaxing, un-clenching muscles he hadn’t even realized were tense. He’s on the highway before the sun sets, and with Rage Against the Machine blasting tinnily from his phone, he settles into his seat and lets the investigative side of his brain run wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the content warning refers to a brief mention of nick's attempt to sexually assault veronica -- jughead remembers it when someone mentions nick, but it only serves to characterize archie's history with nick, and is no more detailed than this description.)
> 
> bonus points if you spotted the two riverdale-esque brand name parodies! it's so fun to come up with those, i might actually have to name-drop brands twice every chapter just for an excuse to write more.
> 
> as always, please drop a comment if you enjoyed! i'm so excited that other people are interested in this story, and hearing your thoughts is (one of) my favorite part(s) of the whole process. <3 stay safe yall, and if you have finals, good luck!!! 😔✊

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3 drop a comment to help me get thru midterms (don't ask me why i started a new fic during midterms. i don't know)  
> as always, you can find me at jugheadology.tumblr.com!
> 
> it'll probably take me a little longer than usual to get new chapters out for this fic - it requires a lot more research than my other fics, and i'm in the middle of the semester. that being said, i'll do my best to update it as often as possible.


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